


Round and Round We Go Again Tripping Across the Stars

by giselleslash



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Androids, Angst, Fate & Destiny, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-14 06:44:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1256665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giselleslash/pseuds/giselleslash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin is lonely so he builds, what he hopes, is the solution to his loneliness, but the implications are almost more than he can bear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Round and Round We Go Again Tripping Across the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> A world of thanks and love to Ingberry and Nympha_Alba for being amaaaazing betas and whipping this into shape. Their insight and suggestions were insanely helpful and I can’t thank them enough.
> 
> This work has been translated into Italian by the lovely Oneday_Painless. You can find it [here](http://www.efpfanfic.net/viewstory.php?sid=3132756&i=1).

Merlin hums a bit as he strokes his finger over the wrist of the hand he’s holding--the skin is so soft, so alive. 

He needs to fiddle with the circuitry to try to get the final ticks worked out but he’s loathe to open up the panel and get to work. 

“My God, Merlin, he’s amazing.” 

He looks up to see Freya reach out to touch. The heat crawls up the back of his neck, like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t, as he says, “Thanks.”

“Where did you get the skin? It’s incredible, it doesn’t have that too-taut artificialness ‘droid skin usually has. This feels human.”

Merlin scratches behind his ear and ducks his head. “Tokyo.” 

Taking a step back, Freya whistles. “Must have cost you.”

“A small fortune, yeah.”

“Well, it’s worth it. He’s fucking unbelievable,” Freya says as she walks around them both, touching and prodding. Merlin almost reaches out to slap her hand away. He has no idea why, but he can’t bear the thought of anyone else touching the ‘droid. 

Freya looks south of the waist and laughs. “Sexbot?”

“Oh my God, _no_ ,” Merlin chokes out.

“Well I am very well-endowed, it’s a natural assumption.”

Merlin jumps in surprise when the android’s voice rings out loud and clear and his eyes open up. 

“Arthur, shut-up.”

Freya laughs again at Merlin’s embarrassment. 

“Arthur, huh?” she asks. “Arthur the sexbot.”

“He’s not a sexbot. Jesus, stop saying that.”

“Merlin and I will be having sex, but it won’t be my only function,” Arthur says.

“Stop being helpful,” Merlin says, and his face feels like it’s on fire. 

“No Arthur, keep being helpful,” Freya says through her smile. “Tell me more.”

“Go away, Freya.”

Finally settling down, Freya touches Merlin on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to tease you. If I don’t I’ll just be insanely jealous of your talent and will have to slap you. Seriously, Merlin, he’s extraordinary.”

The praise is embarrassing beyond belief but it doesn’t stop him from looking up at Arthur’s face and quietly agreeing with her. “Yes. He is.”

Merlin feels heat rush through him when Arthur smiles down at him.

“I’ll let you get back to work,” Freya says. “See ya later, Merlin.”

“See ya,” Merlin calls over his shoulder as she walks away.

“You too, _Arthur_.” 

The obvious glee in her voice makes his eyes roll, but Arthur raises the arm Merlin isn’t working on and waves his goodbye.

“I’ll enjoy seeing you later as well, Freya.”

“Stop being such a kiss-arse,” Merlin says as he adjusts the tension of one of Arthur’s wires.

“But she’s your co-worker, shouldn’t I be pleasant to her?”

“Pleasant.” Merlin snorts. “You know exactly what you’re doing.”

Merlin keeps his head bent over Arthur’s arm as he works but a small smile curves up the corners of his mouth when Arthur laughs and says, “Maybe I do.”

He works quietly for a few minutes until he’s finally done with the adjustments and closes up the back of Arthur’s hand. The skin around the closed panel smooths out until it’s impossible to tell the panel is even there. 

“How’s that?” Merlin asks.

Arthur turns his hand over and back again before wiggling his fingers. “Everything feels correct.”

“Let’s test your fine-motor skills.”

As Merlin watches Arthur perform all the tasks put before him perfectly, his heartbeat picks up and pounds in his chest. He’s finally done.

Arthur is finally done.

 

~*~

 

Merlin sits on the counter and watches Arthur cook dinner. 

“You’re so useless in the kitchen.”

“I’m doing stuff.”

Arthur looks over his shoulder and smiles at Merlin. “Like what?”

“I’m whisking. I’m whisking like a pro,” Merlin answers as he eyes the bowl of marinade he has in his lap.

“You’re right, a total pro. You should have your own cooking show.”

“I should.”

Merlin smiles when Arthur doesn’t comment on the fact he was the one who put all of the ingredients into the bowl, handed it to Merlin with the order to, ‘be useful,’ and then had to demonstrate what to do with the whisk before Merlin actually got on to the ‘whisking like a pro’ bit.

“I’d watch you,” Arthur says. 

“Only to laugh at my ineptitude.”

“That may be, but you’d be absolutely gorgeous while failing miserably.”

As he sets the bowl aside, Merlin laughs and hops down from the counter so he can walk up behind Arthur and wrap his arms around his waist as he kisses the back of Arthur’s neck. 

Arthur leans back into Merlin. 

“You say the nicest things,” Merlin says, his lips still pressing against Arthur’s skin.

“That’s the way you made me,” Arthur teases. 

Merlin closes his eyes and holds Arthur more tightly.

Yes. Yes, it is.

 

~*~

 

Merlin slaps Arthur’s hand. 

“Stop cheating.”

“I’m not cheating, in what world does scissors beat rock?” Arthur asks.

“In my world.”

“Your world is wrong.”

Merlin grins as Arthur tries to knock Merlin’s scissored fingers with his knuckles. 

“You just don’t want to answer any more questions.”

“I can’t help it if you ask boring questions,” Merlin says.

Arthur frown makes Merlin laugh out loud as he grabs both of Arthur’s hands and brings them to his lips. He kisses along the knuckles of both then holds them against his chest. 

“You’re ridiculous,” Arthur says. “I don’t even know why you’re trying not to answer questions, I know everything about you anyway.”

“You only think you do.”

“No,” Arthur says, voice serious. “I know I do.”

 

~*~

 

The pressure of Arthur’s finger is light as it traces the outline of his lips. He smiles against the touch but doesn’t open his eyes. He’s still sleepy, so comfortable and warm knowing Arthur’s there beside him; his feet tangled with his own, his hands on Merlin’s skin, and the bone deep delicious ache still lingering from the night before.

“What are you thinking right now?” Arthur’s voice is quiet, sleep-rough even though he hasn’t slept, has only laid beside Merlin through the night.

“I’m thinking you should let me sleep.”

“Lazy,” Arthur says, his fingers moving along the curve of Merlin’s bare shoulder.

“You wore me out.”

“I couldn’t help myself.”

Merlin laughs softly. “I know, I’m irresistible.”

He’s only teasing, but Arthur takes him seriously. 

“You are,” he says, voice filled with earnest honestly. “I couldn’t stay away from you if I tried.”

Merlin doesn’t tell Arthur it’s the same for him; that he’s never been able to leave him alone. He’s never had it in himself to let Arthur go.

Arthur kisses Merlin, pulls him against his chest and holds him close. 

“Tell me what you’re thinking now,” Arthur says.

Merlin can only open his eyes and tell Arthur the truth.

“I’m thinking about you. I’m always thinking about you.”

 

~*~

 

Merlin watches Arthur read an actual, physical book. He loves doing it. Arthur could quite easily scan a book in seconds but he likes to read page by page, hold it in his hands. He says he absorbs the words better that way. Merlin loves how he says that--absorbs the words--it sounds almost human. It sounds familiar.

“What are you reading?”

“ _Le Malade Imaginaire_ ,” Arthur says without looking up. 

“Show-off.”

Arthur grins and Merlin walks over to the window seat where Arthur is sitting. He pushes at Arthur’s back until he sits forward so Merlin can slip behind him. Once he’s settled Merlin pulls Arthur back against his chest. 

“Read to me,” he says as he starts to card his fingers through Arthur’s hair.

“In French or English?”

“Surprise me.”

Closing his eyes, Merlin lets Arthur’s voice wash over him. He wills every cell of his body to open up and take in his voice, to absorb the words, so he can keep them inside himself forever. 

Living. Breathing.

 

~*~

 

Sometimes Arthur does something so very human that it makes Merlin’s breath stop. Makes him stop and rethink everything he’s done. Sometimes he can forget Arthur isn’t human and everything is okay. 

It’s okay to need him. To love him. To want to be with him and no one else. 

For long days on end he can forget that he should stop, that feeling and acting the way he does isn’t healthy. 

He can forget it isn’t real.

 

~*~

 

Arthur presses into him as they lay on their sides. Arthur’s hand trails a path low across Merlin’s belly, then up his chest until it settles around his neck, just holding him. Tight. Secure. 

Loved and wanted and desired so much.

“I love you,” Arthur’s words ghost across Merlin’s ear. “I love you so much it hurts.”

Merlin’s sob gets caught in his throat and only silent tears streak down his cheeks.

It’s gone too far, all of it. It’s gone too far.

 

~*~

 

When Merlin powers down Arthur he tries to lie to him, tries to tell him there’s a reason he’s letting his charge run so low. It’s only repairs, repairs Arthur knows he doesn’t need. Merlin knows his voice is shaking as he says all of his lies and Arthur only looks at him and asks him why.

 

~*~

 

One month, two months, six months, and Merlin stays away. Refuses to admit he misses Arthur. Refuses to admit that maybe he’s better with Arthur there, that what they are together isn’t unnatural. 

Morgana argues with him. Constantly. He gets to the point where he no longer answers her calls, he can’t handle her tears.

Or the fact that maybe her arguments make sense. 

Only the fact that she ambushes him at his home on the wrong night makes him let her back in again.

“I brought him this,” she says as Merlin finally opens the door to her pounding. 

She hands over a small box as she pushes her way past him and into his flat. Merlin wants to be angry--with her, with his doorman who’s so easily swayed to Morgana’s side, with himself for opening the door--but he can’t muster up the energy. He’s so tired. 

“Wake him up.”

“He’s not real, he’s not sleeping. You can’t wake him up.”

“Fine, power him back up then,” she shouts at him. “Whatever. Don’t be pedantic, you know exactly what I mean.”

“And it’s not his birthday, so I don’t know why you even brought this,” Merlin says as he throws the box down onto a side table.

“Yes it is his birthday,” Morgana says, insistently, angrily, as she snatches the box back up. 

“No, it’s not,” Merlin says, his voice as angry as Morgana’s. “Today is _Arthur’s_ birthday, not that thing’s. _My_ Arthur.”

“He is your Arthur.”

“No.” Merlin shakes his head. 

“He’s my Arthur too, and it infuriates me that you think you have the right to take him away from all of us. You can’t keep him from us, you can’t be that cruel.”

“He’s not real, Morgana,” Merlin yells, so angry he can hardly see through the rage. “And what’s cruel is you and the rest of them insisting I bring him back, that I live everyday with him knowing he’s not Arthur, that he’s only a poor substitute.”

It isn’t until Morgana grabs him, wraps him up in her arms, that he realizes he’s been shaking. At Morgana’s touch, his knees give out and they both sink to the floor. 

“But he wasn’t a poor substitute, was he?” she asks. “He felt real, like Arthur, didn’t he?”

Merlin tries to shake his head no but Morgana keeps talking.

“He felt real to me, to all of us, and he made you so happy, Merlin. You were so happy with him.”

“I did a stupid thing,” Merlin says. “I let my grief and selfishness overwhelm me when I made him.”

“What was so wrong with what you did? Why was it wrong to want him back?”

“Because it wasn’t real. Just because we have the means, the ability, doesn’t mean we should follow through. How is it natural to love a thing that isn’t human?”

Morgana’s fingers tighten on his arm almost painfully and her voice is harsh, wrecked, as she answers Merlin.

“And what’s natural about my brother dying when he’s twenty-nine fucking years old? What’s natural about that? He had decades ahead of him.” Morgana’s voice rises with her anger. “Years and years that were meant to belong to us; to you and me, to my father and all of his friends. He was meant to be here. He wasn’t meant to leave us. You gave those years back to us, you gave _him_ back to us.”

The last of Morgana’s words are shouted into Merlin’s shoulder as she crumbles against him. Anger and tears and sorrow mixing together and shaking them both into pieces. 

“I loved him so much,” Merlin says quietly. “You have no idea.”

“I do,” Morgana says, her voice cracks with exhaustion. “I know how you loved him.”

“No, you really don’t. What I felt for him existed outside of everything else; it was big and alive and it always felt like we’d traveled a really long time together. For years and years. My love for him, it felt infinite and violent. It scared me sometimes. It felt like I loved him so much I could have devoured him.”

Morgana rests her head against Merlin’s shoulder, their breathing the only sound in the flat aside from the faint noise of traffic from the street below.

“Wake him up,” Morgana whispers.

“I can’t.”

“He’s your Arthur, you made sure he was. You put every memory, every thought, every feeling that was ever Arthur into him until he became himself again.”

“But that’s the reason why I can’t wake him up,” Merlin says. He feels so tired he can hardly speak. His limbs feel like lead and he’s happy they’re both sprawled out on the ground because he knows his legs can’t hold him up. “He told me he loved me. That was the end of it all.”

Morgana doesn’t ask why but Merlin knows she wants to.

“Because he only said what I’d programed him to say,” Merlin answers her unspoken question. “Because he wasn’t made to have feelings of his own, to be capable of love. Because I couldn’t give him Arthur’s soul back.”

Morgana starts to cry silently and Merlin can feel her tears start to soak through the fabric of his shirt.

 

~*~

 

Merlin spends his own birthday at his mother’s small home out in the agriculture sector, in a place where you can look up at the sky and still see the stars. Where the beauty and vastness of existence isn’t obliterated by the city lights.

He thinks about the weekend he’d brought Arthur there, how shocked his mother had been when she’d opened the door. How she’d cried as she hugged Arthur and he held her and gently stroked her hair as he hushed her tears and told her he’d missed her too. So much. 

And he thinks about how the two of them had laid out on their backs under the same starry night sky Merlin is lying under right now. 

_“I’ll grow old without you,” Merlin says._

_Arthur’s hand reaches out for his, clasps it tightly. “You’ll never be without me.”_

_“No, I don’t mean it like that. I mean I’ll grow old and you won’t, you’ll stay as you are and I’ll have to leave you.” Merlin can hardly bear to get the words out. “I don’t want to leave you.”_

_“Don’t worry, love, you won’t.”_

_“I can’t help but worry. It’s not possible for me to stay.”_

_Arthur turns his head and looks at Merlin and Merlin feels as if he can see inside of him._

_“After years and years and years,” Arthur says. “When you absolutely have to go, I’ll lie by your side to keep you safe.”_

_“What about when I’m only ashes?” Merlin asks._

_Arthur takes Merlin’s hand and lays it over his chest. “Then I’ll gather you up and put you here, so you’re inside of me.”_

_“I’ll shortcircuit you,” Merlin tries to tease._

_Arthur ignores him and goes on. “And when you’re inside of me I’ll get a place on a burial ship that will take us both up there.”_

_Arthur turns to look up at the sky above them and Merlin does too._

_“When it’s time to spread you across the heavens I’ll ask one of the burial assistants to power me down and send me out with you so it’ll be just the two of us floating through the stars. Quiet and peaceful and together.”_

_Merlin can feel the tears running out of the corners of his eyes and down his temples into his hair._

_“But I don’t want you to die with me,” he says, his voice raw. “You have all of this world to walk across.”_

_Arthur turns and presses himself into Merlin’s side, kisses the tear track at his temple, licks away the saltiness, and says, “The only world I want to walk across is with you, and I will, for as long as the stars will hold us.”_

Merlin reaches out and runs his hand over the empty grass beside him, the spot where Arthur had been that night. He falls asleep and dreams about hopping from star to star in a vast eternal sky, the sound of Arthur’s laughter at his side. 

 

~*~

 

Merlin pulls the sleeves of his hoodie down over his hands before he reaches out for the mug of tea his mum hands over. He’s freezing and she tsks at him again. He’d woken that morning to her slippered foot poking him in the side and her face looking down at him asking what on earth was he doing sleeping out in the yard like a dog?

“Do you think it was strange, what I did?”

Merlin doesn’t need to clarify what he means, his mother knows.

“We all wanted him back, sweetheart.”

“But it was unnatural, delusional. Something a crazy person would do.”

His mother looks at him and doesn’t say a word for the longest time. Her look and her silence become almost uncomfortable.

“Maybe,” she finally says, “what’s crazy, what’s unnatural, is thinking you can live a life without something so bright and grand. That you can live a life lost and afraid.”

 

~*~

 

Merlin decides he doesn’t care what should be and shouldn’t be, what’s right and what’s wrong. He decides he wants to be happy, that he doesn’t want to wither away into nothing. He decides to stop denying himself what he wants, what he can’t live without. 

He wakes Arthur up.

As Arthur powers up he gasps back to life; his chest rises and falls like he’s actually breathing, actually struggling for air after a long time underwater.

Arthur keeps gasping, gulping down air, as he reaches out and grabs Merlin, clutches at him and drags him against his chest.

“Don’t ever leave me again,” he says, and he’s crying, Merlin can feel the tears against his own cheek where it touches Arthur’s. 

Merlin wraps his arms around Arthur’s back, digs his fingers into the soft fabric of his t-shirt. 

“I won’t, oh God, I won’t. I promise.”

“I missed you,” Arthur says, voice shaking.

Merlin presses kisses to Arthur’s mouth, desperately wanting more. “I missed you too.”

“Then why?” Arthur’s voice is so small it pushes a sob past Merlin’s lips. “Why did you leave me?”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I don’t know,” Merlin says. “I thought it was wrong, and that I shouldn’t. I don’t— I’m sorry.” 

“Why is it wrong? I don’t understand.”

Merlin sighs, closes his eyes as he lays his forehead against Arthur’s, and whispers, “Because you’re not real.”

Arthur stiffens in his arms, his muscles tense up. Merlin can feel the anger rise up in him.

“Don’t say that,” Arthur says, voice low. “I’m real. I’m as real as you.”

“But you’re not,” Merlin says as he pulls himself out of Arthur’s arms. “I made you. I made you because I couldn’t be without him.”

“Without me,” Arthur shouts. “You couldn’t be without _me_.”

“You’re not him.”

“Yes, I am.”

“You’re not, I made you,” Merlin says as he reaches out for Arthur, but only grasps air when Arthur backs up from him. “But I don’t care, don’t you see, that’s what I’m telling you. I love you, I don’t care. I only want to be with you.”

“I _am_ him,” Arthur repeats. “I’m me.”

“He’s dead,” Merlin says. “He’s not here because he got in the way of some crazy man’s gun, because there was a little girl and he was stupid and brave and couldn’t leave well enough alone.”

“I had to do it,” Arthur says.

“He had to do it.”

“Yes, I did, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you.”

“Shut up,” Merlin shouts. “Don’t apologize for him, you can’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Arthur repeats.

Merlin chokes on a sob as he pushes Arthur, throws punches at him. “Shut up!”

Arthur lets Merlin hit him, lets him shout, lets him get out all of the anger he’s saved up for so long, until he finally starts to wear himself out.

Arthur wraps an arm around him and takes one of Merlin’s hands in his own. He holds it against his chest as he says, “Feel that. Feel our heart pumping inside me.”

Merlin presses his hand against the thumpthumpthump of Arthur’s heartbeat. 

“It’s me,” Arthur says. “It’s always been me. No matter what you feel, what you tell yourself, I’m me.”

“You can’t be,” Merlin whispers. “I made you.”

“We made each other, over and over again until we were only us. One strange, twisted creature with one beating heart. You didn’t make me, you pulled me back out of your cells and put me together again.”

Merlin lets Arthur’s words wash over him, lets their truth sink into his skin, and he knows--he knows--he didn’t make Arthur. It’s just like Arthur said; they’re made of one another and Merlin’s only just untangled Arthur from inside himself. 

He’s brought Arthur back to life. 

Because the two of them, they’re not meant to be severed.

Not even by death.

They’re impossible, and they’re alive.

 

 

~End


End file.
